This invention relates to a system, apparatus and method for enabling rendering in a virtual environment and, particularly, a system, apparatus and method for enabling priority-based rendering in a virtual environment.
The high-volume, consumer electronics market segment is progressing toward the integration of computer-based advances and traditional audio/video products. Among the computer-based advances, networking systems (e.g., the Internet) offer new opportunities in diverse fields, including entertainment, education, information search, and social interaction. Traditional audio and video offers ease of use and consumer comfort and acceptance in the home, particularly the family room.
One approach to this integration would rely on virtual environments. Virtual environments comprise computer-generated, generally three-dimensional representations of a real, physical setting or scene. The setting/scene can be a city, a mall, an individual store, a building, a suite of offices, an individual office or some other space. The representations can be more or less realistic both in terms of their rendering of the real world and in terms of the human senses that are supported.
In any case, a virtual environment generally comprises virtual objects, the objects typically including entities that are animate or inanimate. Inanimate entities may include features of the environment, such as, for example, walls of a virtual office that are always inanimate walls in the office. Animate entities may include so-called avatars and bots. Bots, broadly, are images that, generally, operate autonomously from the participants, performing predetermined tasks or providing features within the environment. A bot can include, for example, a wall that transforms to deliver incoming messages. An avatar, by comparison, generally is an image that represents, and is controlled by, a participant. An avatar, typically supports one or more of body gestures, facial expressions, speech and motion.
However configured, a virtual environment generally beckons its participants to become immersed in the sensory experience it provides. To do so, the participants interact with the environment's objects. The quality of the participant's experience depends, broadly, on the quality of interaction supported by the environment. In that regard, studies of existing virtual environments have indicated that the quality of social interaction between participants is a dominant factor in determining whether participants are stimulated to repeatedly visit a virtual environment. The studies have also shown that the quality of social interactions depends on support, in avatars, of facial expressions, as well as other body language, generally associated with face-to-face encounters in the real world.
Notwithstanding the studies' findings, however, current virtual environments either fail to support or inadequately support social interaction between participants. To improve the quality of social interaction supported, several challenges are to be met. One such challenge is enabling control of resource loading and allocation, particularly without undermining the immersive and other qualities of the application. Particularly with communication and rendering of multimedia data, conventional virtual environments tend to overload and/or inadequately allocate resources. Such overloading and mis-allocation, in turn, generally impedes support of social interaction via multimedia, e.g. via speech, music, environmental sound, facial and gesture animation, and/or video.
Accordingly, a need exists, in the context of virtual environments, for a system that overcomes the shortcomings of conventional virtual environment technologies, particularly as to rendering and data communication.